Canberra, Oct 10 (IANS): Dementia is on the brink of surpassing heart diseases as the leading cause of death in Australia for the first time, official data revealed.

According to the data, which was published on Thursday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ischaemic heart disease, also called coronary heart disease and coronary artery disease, was responsible for 9.2 per cent of deaths in Australia in 2023, while dementia accounted for 9.1 per cent, reports Xinhua news agency.

Lauren Moran, head of mortality statistics at the bureau, said that there has been a drop in heart disease mortality and a rise in dementia deaths over time due to improvements in medical treatments and health care for the former and an ageing population.

At its peak in 1968, ischaemic heart disease accounted for 30.5 per cent of Australian deaths. Over the last 50 years, the bureau said that the mortality rate for ischaemic heart disease has declined 87.9 per cent while that for dementia has increased 842.8 per cent in the same period.

"The latest data shows that there are now less than 250 deaths separating the top two leading causes," Moran said in a statement.

Dementia, which includes Alzheimer's disease, has been the leading cause of death for Australian women since 2016 and is the leading cause of death in the states of New South Wales and South Australia as well as the Australian Capital Territory.

"Women have longer life expectancies than men and, as such, are more likely to live to an age when they have a heightened risk of developing dementia," Moran said.

Overall, there were 183,131 deaths recorded in Australia in 2023, a decrease of 7,808 from 2022.

The number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 fell by almost half from 9,862 in 2022, when it was the third-leading cause of death in Australia, to 5,001 in 2023.

There were 3,214 people who died by suicide in Australia in 2023, with men making up approximately 75 per cent of those deaths.

The median age at death for people who died by suicide in 2023 was 45.5 years, making it the leading cause of premature death.